Blackwell Won't Remove Himself From Election Investigation May 8, 2006, 05:33 PM EDT CLEVELAND (AP) -- The Ohio Democratic Party on Monday called on Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to remove himself from investigating what went wrong with the primary election in Ohio's largest county, saying the Republican gubernatorial candidate faces too many conflicts of interest to properly oversee the probe. Blackwell's spokesman immediately rejected the request for him to step aside from looking into the elections board in Cuyahoga County, which has just over 1 million registered voters and is crucial to any candidate hoping to win in November. "It's a silly request," said James Lee, a spokesman with the secretary of state's office. "The people of Ohio twice elected Ken Blackwell to serve as secretary of state. He will continue to serve." Lee said the state constitution allows the state's elections chief to remain in his position while running for another office. Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said Blackwell should step aside because his office is responsible for the rules that govern county election boards that had scattered problems last Tuesday, including poll workers who did not know how to turn on new electronic voting machines and some who turned a few voters away because of the hiccups. The worst problems were in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, where some poll workers did not show up to open voting sites and officials ordered the hand counting of more than 17,000 ballots after new optical-scan machines produced inconsistent tabulations. The counting was not complete until Sunday night, leaving several local races in limbo for days. "In his capacity as secretary of state he signed off prior to last Tuesday's election on the counting procedures that resulted in a five-day delay in counting votes," Redfern said. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections met Monday for the first time since the problems surfaced. Ohio-based Diebold Inc., which made the electronic voting machines, has said that county-printed paper ballots did not have the proper coding required for the optical-scanners to work. Election officials say the machines weren't tested by Diebold soon enough to prevent the problem. http://www.wtol.com/global/story.asp?s=4875139&ClientType=Printable
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